Channel Zero: The No-End House Begins September 20
Creepypasta isn’t scary noodles, it’s the 21st century version of the campfire ghost story, only spoken around computer monitors instead of flames. The creepypasta wiki is full of the best ones, and SyFy has been doing something novel by taking some of the most popular creepypasta and adapting them into seasons of Channel Zero, their new anthology horror series. Season 1 premiered last year and was based on Kris Straub’s viral tale “Candle Cove,” about an unnerving kiddie puppet show from the 60’s that turns out to be more than just a program.
This year they’re adapting “No-End House,” which is honestly one of the best things I’ve ever read from someone who wasn’t getting paid to write it (hopefully the royalties from this show will take care of that). It’s a fantastically scary tale about a man who takes up a dare to enter a house with nine rooms. If you can reach the end you get $500, but legend has it no one has ever made it through the entire house.
The man quickly finds out why. The “haunted” dwelling at first appears to be a gimmick, with cheesy sets and Halloween decorations. But as he ventures further, he discovers the truth: each of the nine rooms is worse than the one before it. By the fifth room he’s desperate to get out, and all he cares about is reaching the next door — but all he knows about what’s beyond it is that it’s worse than what he’s faced already!
It’s a great premise to work with if SyFy knows what to do with it. The teasers they’ve been dropping, though, leave me concerned. They are more strange than scary, filled with abstract nonsensical imagery. If the No-End House is nothing but weirdness, they used the story wrong. We’ll see what we get when Channel Zero: The No-End House begins September 20 on SyFy.